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Greens say budget must include the necessary investment
in climate action to create thousands of jobs and protect the
environment
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Party calls on government to end fuel duty freeze and
introduce Frequent Flyer Levy to help fund public transport
revolution
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: “This is about
making the transition to a low-carbon economy while putting
more money into people’s pockets.”
The Chancellor must use this week’s budget [Wednesday 11
March] to announce the rapid and deep investment necessary to
tackle the climate crisis and rebuild our communities, the Green
Party has said.
As coronavirus threatens an economic slowdown [1] and
further damages public services already suffering from chronic
under-investment, the Greens have set out two main asks for the
budget.
The party is calling on the government to announce:
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An ambitious programme of investment in climate action,
to be funded from borrowing, direct credit creation and
changes to banking regulation and business incentives.
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The reversal of a decade of cuts that have left our
communities vulnerable and our public services threadbare, to
be funded through reducing tax exemptions for the wealthy and
increasing the rate of environmental taxes.
At the last general election, the Greens pledged to invest
£100 billion a year in climate action for the next ten
years.
Green Party co-leader said this is the level of
investment needed to protect our climate and invest in our poorer
regions.
He said: “This is about making the transition to a
low-carbon economy while putting more money into people’s
pockets.
“We can no longer accept the same old business as usual
approach, which just sees the most wealthy prosper while the
environment and everybody else pays the price.
“Social and climate crises are all around us. We need to
see real leadership from the Chancellor to address these through
proper investment in green jobs and decarbonisation.”
Green Party finance spokesperson Molly Scott Cato said:
“Tax incentives which encourage the burning of more fossil fuels
are simply wrong.
“That is why we want to see the return of the fuel duty
escalator. We know that freezing fuel duty has cost the
government £9 billion a year since 2010, while also damaging the
environment. [3]
“The extra revenue should then be invested in developing a
reliable and affordable public transport network across the
UK.
“At the same time, air travel has to be taxed responsibly.
We want to see the introduction of a frequent flyer levy and
aviation fuel duty, the proceeds of which need to be invested in
improving regional rail links.”
Notes
1 https://www.independent.co.uk/news/business/news/coronavirus-uk-economy-bank-of-england-treasury-a9371656.html
2 The current best estimates of the
likely investment needed comes from the think
tank Common
Weal who calculate the likely total investment for
a Scottish Green New Deal as £170bn. Extrapolating their
calculations suggests the cost for the UK as a whole may be £100
billion a year, for a minimum of ten years. £100 billion is less
than 5 per cent of UK GDP. The Green Party is committed to invest
on the scale the science dictates to save our climate.
At the last general election the Green Party
pledged to invest £100 billion a year for the next
decade in climate action as part of the most ambitious Green New
Deal of any political party. We proposed to borrow £91.2 billion
a year, to pay for capital expenditure. A further £9 billion a
year of operational spending will be met from tax changes,
including increasing Corporation Tax to 24%
3 https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2018/oct/03/theresa-may-pledges-to-freeze-fuel-duty-for-ninth-consecutive-year
